My Maine Garden: Virtual Demonstration Garden

Celebrate green thumbs in Maine and help other budding gardeners by sharing a photo!

UMaine Extension is inviting Maine gardeners to contribute personal photos demonstrating best horticultural practices — from creative trellising to ingenious ways of deterring hungry wildlife — as a resource in a new virtual demonstration garden.

Participation is free and submissions are welcome on an ongoing basis. Photos should be high-quality image files that focus on a subject viewers can learn from and be inspired by. Categories include, but are not limited to, fruit trees and small fruits; garden design and maintenance; school and community gardens; seed starting and propagation; and conservation practices. Submissions will be reviewed and selections will be shared later this season on this webpage, Instagram, and Facebook page.

Photo Submission Form

For more information or to request a reasonable accommodation contact katherine.garland@maine.edu, 207.942.7396.

My Maine Garden Picture Gallery

Click on individual photos to see a caption with more information.

This heart-shaped potato, 'King Harry' variety, shown resting against a head of purple cabbage, was grown without pesticides.
The purple flowers of Geranium 'Azure Rush' are highlighted against a backdrop of yellow green Alchemilla mollis blooms.
This Master Gardener Volunteer uses a lively combination of late blooming plants (Echinacea, Salvia, Lilium 'Casa Blanca', Perovskia, Rudbeckia) framed by foliage of early blooming perennials (Peony and Iris).
Echinacea is a wonderful plant for attracting butterflies to the garden, and the seed heads are also a food source for birds.
Foliage is as important as blooms in the garden. The shiny, rich green foliage of Clethra alnifolia contrasts beautifully with the large hosta leaves.
Asclepias tuberosa and Veronica (speedwell) attract and support pollinators in the garden.
A monarch rests on Asclepias incarnata, swamp milkweed.
This gardener has found that an added bonus of providing a bathouse for Large Brown Bats, like the one seen here, is that they provide insect control.
Snag trees (dead trees left standing to decompose), like the one in this picture, provide habitat for woodpeckers (pictured) and bats that nest under the loose bark.
Plentiful nests are a sign of a successful effort to welcome birds into the landscape. This gardener discovered nests by their garden shed, apple tree and even on top of a wreath.
The northernmost row of this garden uses the shade provided by tall crops as a location for a nursery of native shrubs like chokeberry (Aronia), red-osier dogwood (Swida sericea) and elderberry (Sambucus).
This low maintenance approach to a lawn saves time, fuel and provides habitat for pollinators.
Monarda 'Jacob Cline', Monarda fistulosa, Ligularia 'The Rocket', and yarrow all abuzz with pollinators.
Gardeners stake and prune tomatoes in a raised bed in the Biddeford Community Gardens.
Removing bird feeders during summer months is the best way to avoid bear damage to feeders and property. Even empty feeders can be enticing. Feed birds in winter when bears are not active.
This small courtyard garden, designed by a Master Gardener Volunteer, demonstrates that using a variety of shapes, textures, and shades of green makes a big impact, even in a small area.
This hose cart provides storage for the hose and fittings that supply water to a drip irrigation system when they are not in use. The "Y" fitting at the spigot provides a way to drain water from the main hose.
In the offseason, after drip irrigation lines have been cleaned, and any leaks or bad emitters are repaired, they are stored on this large reel, attached to a small trailer, pulled behind a garden tractor.
The use of matching wood for these keyhole-shaped raised beds, fence, and trellis keep this vegetable garden looking tidy and the drip irrigation system saves water and labor.
This vegetable garden uses drip irrigation to save water, keep leaves dry to cut down on foliar diseases, and save labor.
This highly-organized gardener has sections in their garden binder for soil tests, maps for crop rotation, crop history, and resources.
A bed of flowers and vegetables is a community garden plot in Eliot that was converted over the course of 6 years to organic and no-till.
Scythes and loppers are excellent tools to manage the edges of meadows without the use of a bush-hog or other mechanical device.
This creative scarecrow is made of wood, pipe, wire, and weights, and dressed fashionably in a green dress and floral hat. Pivot points create movement.

1 2

“With more people sticking close to home this season, we’re seeing a surge in questions from both new and experienced gardeners. We also know folks are taking the time to implement creative solutions to common landscape challenges and simply make their gardens better than ever this season. This inspired us to use this unique time as an opportunity to help new and seasoned gardeners share ideas and gather inspiration from their fellow Maine gardeners.” — Kate Garland, UMaine Extension horticulturist in Penobscot County